Escallonia
A South American evergreen shrub planted extensively as coastal hedging across Britain and Ireland, and a genuinely productive bee plant that almost nobody credits as one. It flowers for months through the summer and tolerates salt-laden wind that kills most alternatives.
Value to bees
- Nectar
- High
- Pollen
- Moderate
- As a honey crop
- Not a honey source
- Which bees, and why
- Worked steadily through the summer. Like privet, a tightly clipped escallonia hedge produces no flowers at all and is of no use to anything — which describes a great many coastal hedges.
Short tubular flowers with a flared mouth, suiting medium-tongued bees.
- Worth knowing
- A good nectar source over a long season, entirely dependent on the shrub being allowed to flower.
Flowering
- In flower
- June to October (northern hemisphere)
A long summer to autumn season, and only on unclipped growth.
Growing it
- Conditions
- Full sun on well-drained soil, and exceptionally tolerant of salt-laden coastal wind. It is not fully hardy inland in cold areas.
- Size
- 2-3 m tall as a hedge, and more if unclipped.
- Native range
- Chile and Argentina. Planted very widely as coastal hedging in Britain, Ireland and New Zealand.
- Suits
- Hedgerow, Small gardens, Large gardens
- Maintenance, and the bit that matters
- As with privet, the most useful thing to do with an escallonia hedge is to stop clipping some of it.
- Clip after flowering rather than before, or better, leave a proportion unclipped.
- One of the best evergreen hedges for exposed coastal sites.
- Escallonia leaf spot has become widespread and disfiguring; more resistant cultivars exist.
What it looks like
A dense evergreen shrub with small glossy aromatic leaves and clusters of small tubular pink or red flowers borne over a very long period.
Sources
- Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland — Bloomsbury (2015) · Field guide
- HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Guides covering this plant
- How to make a garden genuinely useful to beesMost bee-friendly advice covers flowers in June, which is the one thing bees are least short of. The gaps are at the ends of the year — and half the problem is not flowers at all.
- Long-flowering plants for beesA plant in flower for five months does the work of three plants in flower for six weeks, and removes the timing problem that defeats most bee planting. These are the ones that keep going.
Tools for planning planting
- Flowering calendar
What should I plant so that something is always in flower for bees?
- Bee-friendly garden planner
What should I plant in the space I actually have?
- Plant recommendation tool
Which plant fills this specific gap?